


Feet First, Don't Fall

by TheExplodingPen



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drabble, First Kiss, Growing Up Together, M/M, Songfic, silly boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9531218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen
Summary: When Raleigh Becket is eight years old, a new family moves in next door. His foster parents sit him down and very gently explain to him that the boy who lives there now (Charles is his name - Raleigh thinks that’s an old person’s name) doesn’t have a mother anymore. Later, Yancy explains that the woman died in some sort of freak natural disaster and that he probably shouldn’t bring it up.The next day, Raleigh finds out that Charles only answers to Chuck.It fits him better.





	

When Raleigh Becket is eight years old, a new family moves in next door. His foster parents sit him down and very gently explain to him that the boy who lives there now (Charles is his name - Raleigh thinks that’s an old person’s name) doesn’t have a mother anymore. Later, Yancy explains that the woman died in some sort of freak natural disaster and that he probably shouldn’t bring it up.

The next day, Raleigh finds out that Charles only answers to Chuck.

It fits him better.

* * *

When Raleigh Becket is twelve years old, a rumor spreads around the school that Chuck Hansen likes boys the way that he should like girls. They’re still kids and no one really cares, but Raleigh still bloodies the nose of the boy who decides to tease Chuck about it.

After that, they sit together at lunch. Chuck starts following him home after school, and the foster parents don’t mind so much because Hercules Hansen is a jack-of-all-trades and can fix the perpetually leaky sink on the second floor.

* * *

When Raleigh Becket is sixteen years old, Yancy convinces the court that he’s a suitable parent. Raleigh moves out of the foster home and into a crappy apartment that Yancy is barely managing to pay for. So Raleigh picks up a job after school to help pay for the electricity.

It’s been three years and Chuck still sits with him at lunch, grumbling about some teacher’s homework. At first, when he gets the job, Raleigh worries that Chuck will stop following him home, worries that he’ll lose his best friend. And he worries a little bit that he’ll never get the chance to ask Chuck what it’s like to kiss a guy.

But Chuck doesn’t stop showing up. He even follows Raleigh to work most days and sets up camp in a corner of the cafe to do homework while Raleigh washes dishes in the back. And afterwards, they end up back at the one-bedroom apartment while Yancy works the night shift at a fast-food joint.

It’s on one of those nights that Chuck flops down on Raleigh’s bed and says, “It’d be really fucking nice if there was another guy in the whole damn school who was even a little bit bi-curious.”

Chuck never talks about these things, so it takes Raleigh by surprise. “Bi-curious?” he repeats, even though he knows damn well what the term means. 

Chuck snorts, shaking his head. Raleigh’s pillow is going to smell like his shampoo later, and Raleigh can’t find it in himself to mind. “Yeah, golden-boy. Some guy who’s a little curious about doing it with another guy. I’m fifteen and I haven’t even had my first goddamn kiss yet.”

“I’ll kiss you.”

Raleigh’s first kiss was at fourteen with Mako, and afterwards, they came to a mutual agreement to never speak of it again. He lost his virginity shortly after his sixteenth birthday, and the girl was nice, but she wasn’t anything special. She wasn’t Chuck. Which is why, Raleigh assumes, that he’s going around blurting out things like ‘I’ll kiss you’.

When he looks up at Chuck, the other boy is staring him down, eyebrows drawn in tight, like Raleigh is some sort of mystery that needs to be solved. Then, “I’m not asking for a pity kiss,” leaves Chuck’s mouth, and Raleigh finds it all too easy to protest.

(Maybe the two beers coursing through his system have a little to do with that.)

“I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t mean it,” he says, firmly. “It’s not a pity thing.”

Chuck eyes him for a little longer, and then he sits up too. The atmosphere doubles in awkwardness, but Raleigh isn’t about to back down. So when Chuck nods and shrugs and says, “Might as well,” he’s ready.

Chuck tastes like cheap beer when Raleigh licks at the seam of his lips. His hand finds its way to the back of Chuck’s neck, fingers curling into the short hairs there, pulling the other boy closer, deeper into the kiss.

Later, they don’t really talk about it. But Chuck starts spending the night, and no one is surprised.

* * *

When Raleigh Becket is twenty-three years old, he casually slips a ring onto Chuck’s finger. They’re cuddling on the couch in their own cheap apartment, watching whatever action movie Chuck picked out, and Raleigh’s had the ring in his pocket for a month, waiting for the right time.

Chuck glances down and Raleigh’s breath catches, but Chuck just shrugs and says, “Might as well.”

(The enthusiastic sex that follows assures Raleigh that Chuck is anything but indifferent about the ring.)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Halsey's "Roman Holiday."


End file.
